'Used Guitars' is one of those rare albums that catch your ear with their modest charm and then take on a deeper significance. It is, first of all, a collection of songs by some exemplary writers, including John Hiatt and Graham Parker. More than this, however, it is a song cycle that follows a woman's emotions through a difficult passage; there's both yearning for something lasting in the way of love as youth yields to adulthood and frustration with the seemingly elusive and transient nature of commitment.

Jones and Don Dixon, her producer and partner, subtly color each song with varied accompanists, including Marshall Crenshaw and Mitch Easter. Used Guitars is a roller coaster of highs and lows. "Tourist Town," with its breezy escapism, captures the liberating feeling of walking away from it all to make a fresh start. Without a'pause, it segues into the wintry minor-keyed waltz "Wind in the Trees," which turns over the past with a wistful sense of loss and longing. Emotions bottom out on "Ruby," a torch song about someone who has compulsively searched for love and now feels used up and weary.

Musically, the album shifts into high gear with a trio of songs – "You Can't Take Love for Granted," "I Don't Want Him (Anymore)" and "Each Time" – whose collective heart beats to the artful simplicity of Sixties pop. The closing number and grace note is John Hiatt's "If I Can Love Somebody," in which a dobro tenderly counterpoints Jones's moving vocal. "Like a never ending wave/I'm gonna live the dreams I've saved," she sings, and it sounds like a benediction after all that's come before it. (RS 536)

PARKE PUTERBAUGH